It Was a Matter of Security
by Nazareth Rose
Summary: A retelling of the events from Camila Cuevas' newest Glitchtale Origins episode "Kanashi".


Note: I am very sorry if this sounds like a Shakespeare play. The Glitchtale prequels take place in the early 13th century, and the language they spoke at that time period, Middle English, is almost indistinguishable compared to contemporary English. That and I'm not fluent in Middle English, although I could probably understand it if given some text. So for the most part for this story, I had to combine some exclusively Middle English vocab with some Middle English words that carried over into Early Modern English (Shakespearean English), haha. Hope you enjoy anyway!

Kanashi never dared to tell anyone the things he saw. The things he saw every day, from the time he woke up with the sun hung over the middle of the sky to the time he laid himself right to his quarters again, he knew they were enclosed inside of him, that they originated from inside of him, and that no one else could see them.

He saw the most peculiar things all the day long, and while some of them he could explain, such as the warping he saw whenever viewing an inscription of a plague mask, some of them he couldn't quite articulate, such as the breath from the air that left their lungs on a long-night winter's evening turning from white to green. He would arise and view the sky, ponder how the Creator or Creators of his world had arranged everything under the heavens in a dome. And then he saw that dome and everything underneath it turn green, see the droplets of air that left him start to burn. He would take a dance under the rain, his inhibitions failing him quite, and see it sear his skin. He would contort his face and cower like a churchmouse, and so the others would mock and deride him before he realized the rain was quite safe and the danger had fled. He would ask endlessly what ingredients comprised the food he ate, and it was only afterwards that he did so.

But what was the one antidote to stop every peculiar vision was his favorite scarf, of a hue most crimson. He'd had it since he was a child, since those days with Amai…

He'd just obtained his seventh year a few weeks earlier, and the entire family was still up to their necks in giddiness. As his childhood was over, the rest of the neighboring peoples expected him to toil in the fields with his family, but for this day, his parents let him run amok with who they presumed was his lover-to-be.

To his parents, Amai was an angel, sent from above, sent to give them assistance on the farm-fields during harvest-time and sent to give Kanashi freedom from an idle mind. But to Kanashi, Amai was a flash of noonday sun, and while she was nothing more than that, she was nothing less than that, and with that, Kanashi snatched his scarf and set forth on the grass.

All day long, the pair of them ran from street corner to street corner, from streetlight to streetlight. When the afternoon came, he bought some bread from a vendor or two and shared it with Amai. They then each underwent a race to buy new trinkets for each other, although none of them were quite successful, tears nearly forming in their eyes when they realized in order to obtain their new trinket, they had to relinquish the one they'd carried all their lives.

While the bread was still in their bellies, they sat atop a haystack atop an abandoned fief, and used their scarf and a bear-shaped, child's-hand-sized trinket from Amai to tell their own stories about how the constellations were formed despite it being midday. They knew that the unabashedly wild story of them sneaking out in the amidships of the night only dwelt in their minds.

Amai tilted her head to the side. "I don't feel much inclined to make stories about the stars."

"And why in the world would that be?"

"My father says that the story of the stars hath already been told. They were created, and that was all."  
"Well, I've been occupying some hours wondering of how they were formed."

"And how?"

Kanashi tilted his head the same way until his eyes locked with hers. "Birds. The birds do form them. In the middle of the day, the birds take notice of their prey. They quite regret the fact that they're taking a life from the world, so they drop one golden tear into the sky."

"I like that notion. Although I know I shouldn't believe in it, I like it all the same."

After a few more minutes, they ran their way back to the main road, and as their pace quickened, Amai met Kanashi's eyes again, this time with a little ember trained in the back of them.

"I know what we shall do. We shall run as fast as our feet dare to fly, and when we reach a mile, we shall mark the winner!"

Without any protest, Kanashi began, and the people flew by them in thilke* manner of those birds in the sky, watching them with unabetted, unrelenting eye. Through shops and next to taverns they passed, next to peeping neighbors and well-kept gardens by clerkes* they passed, through the far reaches of the village and past the patricial side, hearing the members of high degree* mutter to themselves about "security".

"Hark, they follow us! they follow us, Amai! Why do they follow us?"

Amai hesitated for an instant. "There is a path forged by nature here!"

Kanashi banked to the left, and he didn't see any path before him, and neither did he feel it, as every few steps led to a sort of splinter or meager wound as he attempted to avoid every branch. It was only in the third and most painful splinter that Kanashi realized Amai had snatched ahold of his scarf when they were lying on the haystack in the fief, and it was only when Kanashi ran so close as to touch Amai's tunic when he noticed the scarf, along with Anna's trinket, were missing.

"Where do they go? Where do they go?"

"I placed them next to the tree! They're mile-markers! mile-markers, Kanashi!"

Kanashi was a little disappointed, but continued running nonetheless, ran until he felt a splinter that was more pernicious than the ones he'd encountered and landed on his back quite heavily. Amai very nearly forgot about him before she came back more than a few moments later.

"Kanashi? Dost thee fare well?"

"Aye, and none the worse for wear. I don't reckon I am able to see the village from here."

The slightest rustling of leaves as Amai sat up. "Nor I."

Amai shifted her way to the back and took notice of the sun, watched as it dropped its way over the horizon and slowly became hidden. She wondered, for an instant, of what it was like to fly beyond Pacienco, to fly to the middle district, to watch the sun set on a mountain each night…

"Night falls, Amai," was what Kanashi mumbled as he stumbled to his feet.

And as night fell, the childrens' feet fell, and their vision fell as well. All that they had to guide them were the fireflies and the occasional lightning-bolt from a storm far away. And so they ran past the deer, past the chattering birds, past the bear trinket and the red scarf, out into the village, past the villagers, past the clerkes, past shop-owner and neighbor, and finally into Kanashi's home.

Kanashi cocked his head towards the door. "Hast thou played all the live-long day, children?"

"Yes, sir," was their answer.

"Good, now we can get dinner started."

As they dined on slightly-burnt bread, chicken, and herbs, Amai barely having eaten her first bite of chicken, Kanashi, in distress, confessed to his father that the two of them had each left their trinkets as the mile-marker. Kanshi reiterated, again and again, how the sun had already set and of the animals that were lurking in the woods now.

"As a mile-marker? How far did the two of you venture?"

Amai gave forth a little sigh before her conscience rang true. "We ventured out… into the woods, sir."

"Into the woods? Kanashi, I shall not strike, nor shall I chide, but so moote* I thee give punishment all the same. You will receive no help from me, although you are free to go and seek your mother."

This Kanashi did, although unbeknownst to him, she was on her way home, late from a much-preoccupied day at the market; the chicken and herbs they'd dined on was the remainder of food they'd had in the home. When he failed to find her, he made his way towards Amai's house, where he found Amai's father, Kennari.

"Oh, a mile-marker, eh? Well, that neck of the woods shouldn't be cast too far off from where we are. I'll carry you on my shoulders, and we shall be back before your mother gets home!"

They walked like that for fifteen minutes or so until they passed Kanashi's mother, who thought at first that Kennari was her husband the way he was carrying Kanashi by his shoulders. Kanashi dared not to tell her of what he had done today and why he was with his uncle instead of his father to begin with, only hugging her once, thanking her for shopping at the market, and saying farewell.

For the rest of their walking in the woods, the night was silent save for a hooting owl, the crickets around them, and for the sounds of the village that carried over in the wind, carried from mile after mile. Kennari stooped down, and Kanashi very quickly donned himself with the scarf and held the bear trinket close to his chest.

It wasn't until they were a mile or so cast off from the village that Kanashi noted to his uncle that there was a spot in the distance that looked nearly identical to the fireflies, except it was green. With distress, Kenashi repeated how he'd never seen that type of green before, and that he'd never seen it in the trees, in the grass, and his uncle, with the slightest of shudders, told him how it must be a conglomeration of fireflies, it must be, or else of the devil.

But as they ventured farther and farther, they started to hear screams, human screams, and they both rushed headlong towards the green. Slowly, the green revealed itself to be a dome encompassing the entire village, and the village was dying in all sorts of horrific manners that even the elders hadn't seen even once ere now. People were gasping, clutching their throats when there were no wounds and nobody strangling them, people were twitching in all sorts of strange and peculiar ways on the ground. The people who seemed to be richer than they were, in the patricial parts of the village, had mysteriously vanished from the dome. And those who were either lucky enough to be in the outskirts of the village were crawling their way like terrified babes towards the edge of the dome.

"Amai! Mother! Father!"

He saw one of the oldest villagers drop his basket onto the ground and unceremoniously slump to the earth to meet his basket.

"Amai! Mother! Father!"

A villager with the palest exterior and the darkest of eyes unsheathed his hand, knocked his gangling hand on the dome once, twice, three times before collapsing to the ground.

Kanashi realized the skeletons in his village hadn't already been dead, like in the stories Amai and him used to tell.

"Amai! Mother! Father!"

He saw… no. Was it the ears of a fox? Was it someone else? He'd known hundreds of foxes that'd been in the village. Was this his beloved Amai? Or was it someone he'd never met, someone who he'd barely encountered once or twice on the market streets?

"Amai! Mothe-"

And then his voice stopped, and he gasped and screamed and gasped again for air, for he was being suffocated. No one was strangling him; he felt no weight on him save for someone picking him up, and he scarce had the strength to look back and realize his uncle was running from the dome before he knew no more.

The last he saw in the dome was a man with a plague mask.

A plague mask worn for security.

It had been over twenty years since the event had passed.

His uncle and him had fled to the mountain, to the central district, and after having heard their ordeal, they agreed to take him in one of the refugee camps, joining a myriad of others with horrific stories from their own districts. As time passed and Kenashi turned nine, one of the neighboring villages with a relatively high population of fox-monsters agreed to take in Kenashi and his uncle. There he lived until, at the age of thirteen, he once showed exceptional ability during a sparring with one of the neighbors, and rather than being betrothed to the daughter of one of his neighbors, he was trained by one of the wizards' advisors, who offered him food and lodging near the wizards' meeting-place when Kenashi turned seventeen. Soon, he managed to become a friend to the wizards, and relocated to the headquarters itself ten years later.

Save for the nightmares, he very nearly managed to convince himself that his mother and father never existed in the first place, that he simply had no mother or father and his mind created those images, or else the devil sent them. His uncle had died as well when his time had come, and he'd finished his thirty exceptional years when Kenashi turned seventeen. Kenashi himself was nearing the end of his life now, and so when he ventured out into the dining hall, he tried to be comforted by the clerke's voice.

"If this vision be true and not sent from the depths, they're all martyrs, Kanashi. All the dead are martyrs. Giving their lives for His heavenly service. They're saints now, watching over all of us and all we do. It was a matter of eternal security, Kanashi. They are now in no danger of becoming a part of the eternal flames."

And as the peculiar visions came once again, a beautiful heresy sprung in Kanashi's mind.

*of high degree: upper-class

*thilke: the same

*clerkes: priests

*moote: must


End file.
